Got around to scanning a few more of the yearly planner art I have. Theres a bunch of other pieces in there that still need slight color washes before they’ll be ready to scan. Hopefully get to those soon, but have a bit of other things going at the moment.

For now, here’s the new scans, as well as an updated section in the Drawing page for them. Goal of 2014, organize and redesign the site/pages for easier access and displaying of what I do. Drawing page now.

Chinese New Year
Pretty straight forward, a dragon making it’s way through confetti littered streets.

Independence Day

The origins, dying on the battlefield to force out a foreign ruler and claim independence.

Halloween

The Pumpkin King

Thanksgiving

Remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Giving up their lives for your dinner table. T-Day, never forget.

Over the past year or so, my schedule has been a bit filled up with commercial work and projects for others (which I love, and is what makes my job so interesting and exciting). However, setting aside time to work on my own art has become a priority for me. The webcomic JDGAF is actually something I want to put more time into, and set up a separate site to promote it once I get some more pages done. My paintings have been a little neglected, but I am getting some sketchwork done for upcoming projects.

This in mind, last week while I was browsing the cheap racks outside the Strand bookstore in Union Square, I spotted a weekly planner. One of those moldeskin products that is pocket sized and pretty handy, a good find and very cheap too. I already have a planner though, but decided to get it anyway and do something with it. By the time I got home I had decided I was going to use the planner as a sketchbook, and fill each page with something to symbolize the week/day/etc. The first image I created was on the train to visit family Easter Sunday, and turned out looking like this.

I did end up sharing him on the various social media sites I use (quick snapshot), and have greatly enjoyed the interpretations that people post regarding his looks, expression, and demeanor. Was a really fun drawing to make regardless. I did learn two important things through this though. First being, that no matter that I tend to sketch very light, the ink shows through the thin paper of this planner, and second being, that even the thinnest of paint washes on thin paper tend to bleed through.

With both of those things in mind, the next sketch I did, I decided to give a full page gap between pages that I’ll be inking like this. As for the in between pages, I’ll likely go through those with some sketching in pencil. The second page was a backtrack to Saint Patrick’s day, and turned out fairly cuter than the rabbit, and a touch motivational as well.

Over the remainder of the year I’ll be filling this up, and backtracking a bit. Although, to be honest, my memory for holidays and dates of observance tend to not be the best, so there may be some obscure holidays, interesting observations, seasonal related thoughts, etc. The work wont be quite as personal as my sketchbook tends to become, but there will be a lot of interesting and close to the heart art. Be sure to check back often and see what else comes about over the year.

Tuesday of this previous week I started an illustration project for Brutal Bitches Productions, a metal music concert organizing company based out of the Bronx. Was told to do something with a sexy metal chick, surrounded by carnage. But had to do it in a way that there would be enough room for the band logos and event info to not completely block the imagery.
Send one sketch, that was rejected, so then sent this one as a thumbnail, and got an okay to work with it.

“Just make it sexy, add some decapitations, and monsters, okay?”

I think I should have no problem with that, *wicked smile*. Have I mentioned that I love what I do?

Next step was some rough sketching and then adding ballpoint linework over the pencil so I could erase and have a clean working surface, so that line art became this….

The original idea was to stick to a mostly black and white image to make it very bold, and include some splashes of color, so I started working in my shading using varying grays. Pretty much just acrylic washes of payne’s gray to build up what I wanted it to look like in a basic sense.

Then,… well it was decided that full color would be so much cooler as the band logos look pretty crazy in color and the illustration had to work with them and not be completely obscured by them. So started laying in color washes over the gray shading, and that ended up coming out along these lines.

A few more washes to close out some of the white spots and darken some spots I wanted to set back, and then the next real part was the outlines in micron on the things that were more foreground prevalent. Basically the outlines on the figure (Metal Goddess) and her hair were in black micron, which is basically like a really fine tipped marker for line art. The background buildings and figures got touched up with more ballpoint so as not to compete too much with the foreground.

The last thing I did before sending it off to BBP was to adjust the levels digitally so the dark parts were even darker and the color a little sharper. For illustration projects I generally go this route, because that way I’m not physically working everything so dark that it can’t be changed if necessary.

After sending the file on Thursday, yes Tuesday night til Thursday morning, was a quick turnaround for this piece (read: very little sleep) had to wait til today to see the fully edited version. With the colors and the logos it looks pretty sick indeed. All in all cool project with a fun conclusion. Hopefully the event is as metal as the poster. \m|_ Like BrutalBitchesOnFacebook _|m/